Help to Buy scheme pushes up house prices, study reveals

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A homelessness charity has discovered that the Government's Help to Buy scheme has increased the average price of a home by over £8,000.

Around 170,000 properties have been bought with an equity loan since the launch of the government’s Help to Buy scheme in 2013, with the value of these properties estimated at £42.23 billion, according to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Authority.

A total 81 per cent of purchases have been made by first-time buyers, and although it has been announced that the scheme is set to run until 2021, it has been under scrutiny.

There are claims that the scheme is enabling people who can afford to buy without the equity loan, to climb onto the property ladder with just a five per cent deposit; so driving up property prices for everyone.

Homelessness charity Shelter analysed the increased amount of mortgage lending in correlation to the scheme and concluded Help to Buy has increased the average home price by £8,250.

As a result, housing experts at Fasthomes.org collated data from ‘Help to Buy (Equity Loan scheme) and ‘Help to Buy: NewBuy statistics: to March 31, 2018, England’ by The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Authority, to determine which areas of England have had the most and least completed Help to Buy equity loan property purchases.

It was found that Yorkshire and The Humber has had the third lowest number of property sales made via the Help to Buy equity loan schem,e at a total of 15,547; a 232.02 per cent increase since the first quarter of 2013. As regards counties that have had the most and least completed Help to Buy equity purchases, West Yorkshire came out on top of the list with 6,530 completed property transactions, representing a 64.56 per cent increase since 2013.

West Yorkshire was closely followed by South Yorkshire (3,855) and East Riding of Yorkshire (2,179). Second from the bottom was North Yorkshire with just 2,158 successful property sales made using the scheme; although as a county it showcased the most significant increase for the number of properties bought using Help to Buy equity loan at 583.33 per cent. The regions with the highest number of properties sold using the Help to Buy equity loan scheme are:the South East (28,361), the North West (23,429) and the East of England (21,455).